The Official Blog of PCPB

The amendment says the state cannot "create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the ... effect of marriage."

Family values, Ohio style?

Since Ohio has passed its precious Defense of Marriage Homophobia Amendment, it conflicts with its domestic violence law. Now I understand that the case that was dismissed was against a woman who assualted her live-in boyfriend. Yes, domestic violence can happen to men, but let's face it, the overwhelming majority of the victims are women. The Commonwealth Fund estimates that 25-31% of ALL women will face domestic violence. In Salt Lake City, the ratio of victims of domestic violence is a 9:1 overwhelmingly in favor of yes, you guessed it women while 95% of the perpetrators are men.

Truly, I am afraid of the message this will send much as Bill Napoli's infamous exception for rape which only virtuous Christian women should be allowed to get abortions if they are raped. This sends the message that if you're living with someone you're not married to, you are obviously immoral and therefore, do not deserve protection under the law. Basically, you are on your own because you obviously do not have morals and are not paragons of Christian virtue. I wonder how many fundamentalist, evangelical, or Catholic preachers believe that domestic abuse in this case is justified as the instrument of God's punishment? Care to speculate? Basically instead of slapping the offender with a FELONY Domestic abuse charge, they are to be slapped with a misdemeanor assualt charge.

As I have stated in the past, I am sick and tired of this Puritan mentality that threatens to overrun this country as the Religious Right is slowly taking over. This mentality can be found from anywhere from the War on Drugs, the abortion debate, AIDS, the HPV virus vaccine which can possibly protect against the virus that causes cervical cancer and save MILLIONS of lives, and now this.

Is the most pressing concern in our country the non-existent Homo agenda? Is the most pressing concern in our country preventing gays and lesbians from getting married? Does this trump protecting women from domestic abuse and rape? Is the Religious Right willing to sacrifice the lives of young teens who make up a significant proportion of the victims?

Stats from about.com

• As many as 324,000 women each year experience domestic violence during their pregnancy.

Shouldn't this be one of the Religious Right's concerns considering how much they love the fetus? Perhaps not, because they were silent when members of Congress wanted to allow pesticide testing on fetuses. Are they willing to charge the abusive spouse with murder if the mother miscarries? My intuition says no.

• On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the US every day.

As Mike Malloy would say in his catch line in his mock Religious-Right, stern preacher voice, "AT LEAST THE QUEERS CAN'T GET MARRIED!"

• In a survey by the US Conference of Mayors, 56% of cities surveyed cited comestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness.

Gee, there goes the "you're homeless because you're lazy and shiftless" myth that conservatives love to promote to justify not helping the homeless. But then again, many of them would blame the victim in this case, as asinine as it sounds.

• 50% to 70% of men who abuse women also abuse children.

Considering that I've heard that even children are blamed for the sexual abuse they suffer, I'm not surprised there is no outcry.

In conclusion, SILENCE AND BIGOTRY KILLS.

Labored logic

Democrats have been buzzing about comments made by state Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) at a recent eggs-and-issues breakfast in Hart County. We quote from the Hartwell Sun newspaper: "Commenting on illegal immigration, Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. 'We could have used those people,' she said."

So now we know what many of these so-called pro-lifers think when it comes to abortion. They know that often economic issues have a lot to do with whether a woman will choose to abort her baby or not. Rather than to deal with this by providing social programs and empowering people by giving them a living wage, Republicans like her decry the lack of "personal responsibility." Perhaps the poor should not have babies that they cannot afford. By casting blame in this manner and by blaming the poor for being poor, they can justify dismantling the social safety net, because they perpetually promote the myth that the poor are poor because they're lazy, shiftless, and morally tainted. It is no accident that abortion rates have declined under the Clinton administration and picked up under the National Litterbox Administration. It's simple. If you want to deal with abortion, make sure you have a good social safety net.

The quote proves that for many Republicans, their concern is not for the fetus or the mother. Rather they are upset that corporations and factories are being denied "cheap labor." Many of these Republican politicians do not reveal such things for fear it would alienate pro-lifers, but when it slips out, it speaks volumes. This is just one facet of what is known as pro-life ideology, Republican style. Not about the fetus or the mother, not about life or happiness, but all about power, control, and cheap labor.

If they were truly concerned, they would not make such asinine comments. Also if they were truly concerned about life, they would have also included in addition to the ban on almost every abortion in South Dakota, funding for adoption programs and foster care programs. They could even raise taxes on the wealthy to fund these programs, but Republicans would never dare do that. If a bill was introduced, it would die quickly proving that money trumps pro-life ideology any day for Republicans. They would have tried to provide a good safety net in addition to the abortion ban. The fact they did not do so only validates the claim that they are not pro-life but only concerned about the fetus because in doing so they can fool the religious base into believing that they really are pro-life and deserve their votes. It validates the claim that Republicans don't care about you after you are born.

Tom Fox, who was found tortured and killed was an example of the truest Christian: a peacemaker.

Love your enemies and turn the other cheek not an eye for an eye (Matt 5:38–48)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Let us not forget that while the Religious Right may claim to be the mouthpieces of Christianity, that they are not the only examplars of Christianity in society today, no matter what the media says or wants us to believe. For every Pat Robertson who calls for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, for every Jerry Falwell who preaches hatred towards gays while disguising it as "loving the sinner, but hating the sin" there is a Tom Fox who takes it upon himself to follow in the ways of the Prince of Peace who could have called down Thunderbolts from heaven upon his crucifiers but rather prayed for them as he was dying. For every Tony Perkins, there is a Tom Fox who through his actions teaches us that for evil, there is a good that can overcome it, for I truly believe that good will always overcome evil.

Let us not forget that for those who cry out that they are doing the Will of God by oppressing homosexuals and condemning people who do not believe in their brand of Christianity, there is a peacemaker who was more concerned about bringing peace than converting people to his religion. His was a mission of mercy, a mission to bring peace to a war-torn land, and he died for it, a true martyr to the faith.

I am linking to my colleague's blog as she has said it eloquently and effectively about the hatred Rush Limbaugh has spewed towards these peacemakers. Let me just add that Rush is not fit to wait upon Mr. Fox as he hides behind a microphone, safe behind his studio where he can be brave enough to spew out such vitriol as "Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality."

I'm sure Rush considers himself pro-life just as many of these hypocrites do. Of course he considers himself a paragon of Christian virtue. Well I don't know what Gospel he reads but he's no example of Christian values. He's no example of family values. He cries out against liberals claiming that we are Satanic baby-killers who sacrifice fetuses to the Prince of Evil, he claims that we would much rather have Saddam Hussein in power. Rush and many of the brain-dead sheep freepers claim that we embrace a Culture of Death. Well I say to that, you're a bunch of hypocrites who should be looking in the mirror. Well a pro-lifer would not have expressed his satisfaction when these Christian Peacemakers were taken hostage. A pro-lifer would condemn the war-profiteering going on, especially by Halliburton. A pro-lifer would condemn Bush and the Pentagon for dragging its feet in providing body armor for the troops. A pro-lifer would have raised money for the troops for buying Armor, instead of a useless, propaganda money-making scheme such as this one. The last thing they need is for them to be told that things are going just swell in Iraq when they know the truth. A pro-lifer would condemn the 37 pro-life senators who voted to support pesticide testing on fetuses.

In conclusion, it is the Right who has embraced a Culture of Death whether it is from deaths caused by pollution to the dead in Iraq, all for what? American hegemony.

Tom Fox was tortured, yet Rush Limbaugh thinks the torture we do at Abu Ghirab is nothing but fraternity pranks gone wild. Well tell THAT to Mr. Fox's family. We as Americans are responsible for this heinous act as we have stood silent while innocents at Abu Ghirab have been tortured and humiliated, and all for what? The Red Cross estimates 70-90% of those we held in Iraq are innocent and have been picked up by mistake. Yet we torture them and our attitude in pro-life America is, "Let God sort them out." We warned the Chimpeviks that encouraging our troops to torture would bode trouble for our troops who would fall into enemy hands. Looks like our dire prophecies are coming true.

To a true pro-lifer, both parties do not meet your high standards but you have been brain-washed into believing that if you're pro-life, you must vote Republican lest you be sentenced to Hell. That is the biggest lie being spread in American politics in addition to the supposed compassionate conservative, when there is no such thing.

Today is...

Blog Against Sexism Day

Rape, Women, and Stereotypes
I belong in the school that says rape is never the victim's fault. I can totally understand a woman wanting to get an abortion if she has been raped. Carrying the baby to pregnancy is only another deep psychological scar in the midst of PTSD and these men seem to forget that the last thing a woman needs when she's raped is judgment and blame, excusing the rapists by placing some if not all the blame on the woman. However, I will have total respect for a pro-life woman who carries her child because she will be consistent at least. Nonetheless, I suspect that the majority of pro-life women never consider that rape will happen to them. We are trained to believe that rape only happens to sluts who are "asking for it." The attitude is similar in countries where honor killing is rampant. People who kill their sisters for being raped say that "a rapist would NEVER target any respectable woman, it's only the sluts and whores."

The Right in this country has framed the debate, especially in cases of rape by labeling women as promiscuous vixens who had it coming to them. In our culture, men often get the impression that women are loose, that they really don't mean it when they say no. We tend to see that perhaps this woman really WANTS to have sex with us if they accompany us to our hotel rooms at 3 am. This attitude goes back even to the days of the ancient Greeks where lyric poets viewed women as animals needed to be tamed (with that implication is that women are promiscuous and marriage "tames" them and other portrayals showing them as having insatiable sexual appetites such as the women in Lysistrata. One of the most famous poems was that of Semonides who compared women to animals and listed all their faults. The only kind of woman he spared was the bee who much like many on the right's ideals keeps house and does her job as a housekeeper. Our attitudes when it comes to women need to change as they are akin to attitudes of those in countries where honor killings are condoned. I cannot think of another crime where the victim is blamed. I cannot think of another crime where we make excuses for the perpetrator of the crime.

The fact is the last thing a rape victim needs is pointing the finger and casting blame. In fact the clergy needs to be called out on this. I'm sick and tired of hearing about rape victims forced to do penance for "putting themselves in the wrong situation" as if that excuses the rapist from any wrong-doing. The lawyer in the video rapist case said that he wasn't trying to impugn the reputation of the victim and said yeah, she didn't do anything wrong, it was an innocent mistake. However, he has already done his damage to the point where the victim was blamed for her own rape. If it was consentual, why did the rapists have to write degrading words like Slut on her while she was passed out? Why did they have to flee?

I would like to turn to another topic...
Alcohol and date rape
I hear the attitude that a raped woman who gets drunk is asking for sex. Why else would she get drunk? Last time, I checked, no one even a drunk woman wants to be raped. Then there are those who are peer pressured or coerced into drinking. But the man didn't ram the bottle down her throat, did he? Well studies show that peer pressure is harder to resist than you think. Take the studies that show a person who has marked a correct answer will change it if the proctor tells him that everyone else marked another answer. A date rapist will never use outright force in getting his date to drink (Yes it can happen to men too but for simplicity's sake) because that would be too obvious. Most likely, he will start off easy, get his date a drink and then two until she is too drunk to know what's happening. Studies show that an inebriated woman will not recognize cues of aggression while a guy will get more aggressive even if he thinks he is getting drunk and also that most date rapists plan on getting their victims drunk. If we were to assume that neither party is to blame because no consent has been given, then that will just further encourage date rapists to get their victims and themselves drunk, knowing that they would get away with it. These same studies show a double standard in our thinking as we tend to believe that men who are drunk are less responsible for rape than men who are sober while we believe at the same time that women who were drunk are more responsible for their rape than sober women.

Yes, false positives do happen and yes false identifications do occur which is not surprising in such a traumatic tragedy such as rape, but it is not the victim who should be blamed. It is the fault of a lazy system which seeks to convict anyone even if guilt is not established beyond a reasonable doubt. The system can be reformed by not asking leading questions that often change a victim's memory and a photo should only be shown AFTER the victim gives a description. In cases of the video rapist who was acquitted because the lawyer convinced the jury that the victim was drunk, one should assume that no consent means no consent. To those who say that then you can make the argument that BOTH raped each other, that is just ridiculous in the light of studies showing that the majority of date rapists get their victims drunk as a measure to fall back upon if they are hit with repercussions. Too often men are given the impression that if everyone's drunk, there's a grey area when it comes to sex and too often date rapists believe that alcohol is a justification of raping someone. Well Alcohol is NEVER an excuse to rape someone. Why don't you try telling a police officer that you crashed your car into another car, killing the occupants and because you're drunk, you shouldn't be responsible.

False positives
The problem is questioning, especially leading questioning can change memories (Leichtman & Ceci 1995). Also especially when a weapon is involved in a crime such as a rape, the victim has even more of a chance of getting the identification wrong as naturally the victim will be more focused on the weapon rather than trying to see the criminal's features (Steblay, 1992). Nonetheless, the more often a witness repeats and recollects information, whether it's accurate or not, the more confident they become. This often leads to false identifications which means the real criminal is still running loose, and that is what G.L. Wells in his article "What do we know about eyewitness identification?" in 1993 called a double-injustice.

Juries and judges are swayed by the confidence a victim has in her/his testimony and often this leads to tragic results, but I would not go as far to say that many of these are deliberate. I still think that our system needs to be reformed so that we don't lead victims into making false identifications for the convenience of the police department. Many of these falsely accused were victims of an overzealous police department which probably encouraged the victim's testimony along.

CHARLESTON, WV – The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal discrimination lawsuit on behalf of the surviving family members of a Welch man who died of a heart attack after the police chief physically prevented his friend from performing CPR. The police chief blocked the CPR because he falsely assumed that the man, who was gay, was HIV positive and therefore a health risk.

“I’m heartbroken that I have lost my son over such ignorance and bigotry,” said Helen Green, mother of Claude Green, Jr., who died at the age of 43. “I can’t understand how someone who is supposed to protect the people of Welch could physically block another human from saving my son’s life. It’s always difficult for a mother to lose a child, but to have lost my son so needlessly will be with me for the rest of my life.”

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia on behalf of the surviving family members of Claude Green, Jr. against the City of Welch and Robert K. Bowman, Welch’s Chief of Police. The lawsuit charges that Bowman discriminated against Green by preventing others from providing life-saving medical care to Green because of his sexual orientation and/or perceived HIV status. The lawsuit also charges that Bowman violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against someone he perceived to be HIV positive.

“Bowman’s actions were a frightening abuse of power,” said Rose Saxe, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s AIDS Project. “It’s hard to say what was more shameful: that Chief Bowman assumed Claude Green was HIV positive solely because he was gay, or that Bowman was so ignorant about HIV that he felt you couldn’t safely perform CPR on an HIV positive person.”

According to the ACLU lawsuit, Green suffered a heart attack while driving with a friend last summer. The friend, Billy Snead, was performing CPR by the side of the road when Bowman arrived and told Snead to stop because Green was HIV positive. When Snead didn’t stop the CPR, Bowman grabbed Snead by the shoulders and physically barred Snead from continuing CPR at a critical point in Green’s resuscitation. Snead, who had not realized at first that Bowman was a police officer, obeyed his commands.

While Green fought to stay alive, Bowman prevented anyone else from aiding Green until EMS workers arrived approximately 10 minutes later. While they were putting Green in the ambulance, Bowman informed EMS workers that Green was HIV positive. Although the EMS workers ignored Bowman’s warnings and performed CPR on Green, he passed away shortly after arriving at the hospital. He did not have HIV.
“The job of the police is to protect and serve,” said Andrew Schneider, Executive Director of the ACLU of West Virginia. “This lawsuit sends a message to public officials that prejudice and ignorance about HIV are not only wrong, but can have tragic consequences. We are filing this lawsuit to prevent further tragedies.”

Green is survived by his mother, a 19-year-old son, three sisters, and a brother. All of the family members were present at a press conference in Charleston announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

“We have brought this lawsuit to stop Police Chief Bowman from hurting more people,” said Green’s sister Anita Tickle, a practicing nurse. “I have spent my life helping sick people, including people with HIV, and I cannot understand how Bowman could possibly justify his actions. We’ve known for two decades that HIV is not easily transmitted and that it is safe to perform CPR on someone with the disease. That’s something a police chief ought to know too.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there have been no documented instances of HIV transmission through CPR.

A copy of the complaint and additional press materials are available at
Case Profiles

link

Only in Bush's America can someone be DENIED medical treatment just because he's gay. The police chief ordered the man's friend NOT to perform CPR and physically restrained him, falsely believing that if you are gay, you are diseased and you must have AIDS.

This is similiar to the belief the Nazis had about Jews being diseased and spreading diseases. May I point out that the rhetoric the ultra-Religious Right groups like the American Family Association mirror that of the Nazis. I do not say this lightly but I do offering a link with a comparison of the rhetoric against Jews and against gays today.

Being pro-life means you fight for EVERYONE, not just the unborn. You fight for all life, including those you despise. Perhaps this chief considered himself pro-life too, but if he does, he is no better than the Catholics in Michigan who looked upon the Republican-dominated (go-figure) House over there passing a law that allowed health care workers to refuse service based on moral and ethical concerns, meaning that if you were against homosexuality and believed it to be an ABOMINATION, you could theoretically deny a gay person treatment even if he or she were dying.

P'shaw, say the pro-lifers, we would never deny them treatment if they were dying. That's not pro-life. Well it can happen as shown in West Virginia where a gay man is dead of a heart attack because a police chief was too scared that the gay man could spread "disease like rats do." It can happen in an America where you are encouraged to thrive on your basest emotions. It can happen in an America where the GOP uses wedge issues such as gay marriage to bring out their homophobic base to win elections. It can happen in an America where the religious right uses hatred of gays as a way of showing their "piety."

The Religious Right is spreading mythology based on the research of Paul Cameron who is so discredited that the APA threw him out of the ranks of its members. THERE is false info being thrown out there and it is costing lives whether it is hate crimes or ignorant-bigoted decisions such as this one. IMHO, part of the problem is the Puritan ethos which does not seek to treat but rather to blame whether it's people who suffer from AIDS, drug addicts, or women who have been the victims of sexual assualt. Instead of condemning people with AIDS, we should be working towards alleviating their suffering, empowering them by giving them a say in their treatment, making them feel like people by giving them the dignity they deserve as human beings. That is being pro-life, not this faux pro-life BS that Bush promotes. Instead many of us treat them as being diseased rats and those who are supposed to be the arbiters of morality as they claim they are facilitate the spread of this mythology, demonizing those whom they say they love.

Wake UP, America! HOMOPHOBIA KILLS (as if we didn't already know that)!

There is NO SUCH THING as being SELECTIVELY PRO-LIFE.